Born: January 15, 1869, Cracow, Austro-Hungarian partition of Poland (presently Poland)
Died: November 28, 1907, Cracow
Early days. His father, Franciszek Wyspianski was a sculptor, mother- Maria nee Rogowska died when Stanislaw was three years old. Since 1880 he lived with his uncle and aunt Stankiewicz belonging to a cultural elite. For eight years Wyspianski attended St.Anna Gimnazjum (high school) where the educational emphasis was on the history of Poland and Polish literature. He also got exceptionally good background of antiquity. In the school he befriended Mehoffer, Zulawski and others. During the periods 1887-1890 and 1896-1897 he studied history, art history and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Wyspianski also began to study painting at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow (then under Matejko). Matejko entrusted him with painting polychromes which he designed for the Maria’s Church in Cracow. Wyspiański was fascinated by the theater; he has seen on the stage the most prominent Polish actors of that time (Helena Modrzejewska among others). In 1890 he went abroad visiting Vienna, Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Como, Luzerne, Basle. He finished this trip in Paris where he stayed for some time. He returned to Poland through the locations of famous gothic cathedrals- Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Laon, Reims, Strassbourg- and then to Nuremberg seeing during this trip famous Romanesque cathedrals. Finally he visited German cities where he went to theaters to see plays by Goethe, Weber, Wagner and Shakespeare. In May 1891 Wyspianski went again to Paris to continue his studies. He was not admitted to the École des Beaux Arts and began paintings in an atelier known as.L’Academie Colarossi.
Artistic carreer. Wyspiański was one of the most outstanding and multifaceted artist of his time in Europe. He successfully joined trends of modernism with themes of Polish folk tradition and Romantic history. In a series of stained-glass windows in Franciscan church in Cracow he expressed an enormous dose of his religious devotion. Wyspiański wrote a number of plays covering critical moments of Polish history. Wyspiański is considered to be the founder of the Polish modern drama; his plays, often allegorical, circle around historical events and the contemporary life of Poland, as in Warszawianka (1898), Legion (1900), The Wedding Reception (Wesele, 1901)- is a deeply critical yet sarcastic expose on Polish society of 19th century. Wesele transformed Wyspianski from a moderately successful visual and verbal artist associated with the Young Poland movement into a national dramatist-visionary whose significance in Poland is comparable to Yeats's in Ireland, O'Neill's in America, or Maeterlinck's in Belgium.- Wyzwolenie(1903), and Noc Listopadowa (1904). His other plays are drawn from Greek mythology, e.g., Powrot Odyseusza (1907). Wyspiański's dominant concern was the renewal of Polish independence as well as individual freedoms. Wyspianski also designed and partially executed among others the polychrome in the Franciscans Church in Cracow. He was awarded the prize of Polish Academy of Abilities for the landscape with Kosciuszko Hill. From 1898 he became the director of the artistic weekly Zycie. In 1900 he married Teofila Spytkowna. In 1906 he became professor at Cracow’s Academy of Fine Arts. He became however ill of syphilis (then an incurable disease) and died in 1907. His funeral was a national manifestation. He was buried in the Crypt of the Distinguished in the Na Skalce Church. . Polish Sejm (Parliament) declared year 2007 to be the Year of Stanislaw Wyspianski.
Source:
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Stanislaw Wyspianski" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia (in Polish)
Wikipedia (another version- in English)
Other sources:
Maria Prussak, Marta Romanowska (in Polish)
Witold Raczunas, Pinakoteka (in Polish) Photos of 122 Wyspianski's paintings
Marek Adamiec, Wyspianski's plays (in Polish)
Marek Adamiec, Wyspianski's, rapsods, poems, hymnal (in Polish)
A movie "Wesele" (in Polish) directed by Oscar award winner Andrzej Wajda was produced in 1973. See:
IMDB
Link to an English translation of his play Wesele (Wedding):
Constance J. Ostrowski
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